Chappell Roan Reveals Her Dream Concert Venue to Play

From playing Coachella to headlining the Kentuckiana Pride Festival in Louisville, to opening for Oliva Rodrigo during her Guts World Tour stops at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena to Houston’s Toyota Center, and more, Chappell Roan has been taking her music to venues across the country, but there’s one spot in particular she hopes to one day play. Speaking with fans ahead of her Midwest Princess Tour show in Cleveland, Ohio in May, the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer, 26, revealed her “dream venue,” and it’s not what fans would think.

“I think it would be so funny to play like my high school football field or something. Just be like,” the singer, who hails from the small midwestern town of Willard, Missouri, told fans as she held up her middle finger just as a horn from a passing boat sounded.

The singer, real name Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, previously told The Riverfront Times that she felt “disconnected and emotional” as she made her way through Willard High School. Roan said she “didn’t have a good time…I just felt really out of place and I couldn’t really understand myself. I always longed for an artist community like the one I have now.”Opening up about her Midwestern upbringing with Variety, the singer who eventually took the name Chappell Roan in homage to her late-grandfather, Dennis Chappell, and his favorite song, “The Strawberry Roan” by Marty Robbins, said she had a “really depressed” childhood, noting that she was diagnosed bipolar when she was 22. She also said that growing up in a Christian household, she “just wanted to feel like a good person, but I had this part of me that wanted to escape so bad. I just wanted to scream.”

Roan’s midwestern roots are reflected in her music, the singer sharing that she “knew I needed to put the Midwest in there just because it’s so important to my project. It influences the music, my fashion, my lyrics, the energy around it. It’s important for me to capture the Midwestern aspect. I don’t want to lose that part of me. I thought I really did when I was younger, but now I don’t anymore.”

The rising queer pop icon, who has been scoring hits with titles like “HOT TO GO,” “Pink Pony Club,” and “Red Wine Supernova,” has been busy these past few months touring in support of her 2023 debut studio album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Stops on the tour have included shows in San Diego, Birmingham, Pittsburgh, and more. She also opened for a string of shows on Rodrigo’s tour, including stops in Chicago, Nashville, Orlando, Chicago, Montreal, and more, and has played festivals including Hangout Music Festival, Boston Calling Festival, and the 2024 Governors Ball Music Festival. She is next set to perform at the 2024 Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, Washington on July 19. Her high school football stadium currently isn’t among the future stops.

While Roan is keeping busy with her current tour, with fans already hoping that she extends the tour with larger venues, there is one venue in particular that she won’t be performing at any time soon: the White House. During her Gov Ball show, the singer revealed that she turned down a White House invite to perform for Pride Month. Roan dedicated “My Kink Is Karma” to the Biden administration “as a response to the White House, who asked me to perform for Pride. We want liberty, freedom and justice for all. When you do that, that’s when I’ll come.”During the show, the singer also debuted her latest single, “The Subway,” which hasn’t yet made its debut on any music streaming platforms.